


Accidental Meeting

by Hekate1308



Series: Tales of the Thursdays [5]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, The Thursdays adopt Morse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 16:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19212910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: It had been bound to happen.





	Accidental Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> So it happened again. I hope you are all still enjoying this!

One day, Dev woke up and realized that he was going to turn fifteen soon.

He couldn’t recall a year ever passing so fast. And when he had been sent to live with his biological father, he could never have imagined that life would become so wonderful just because he helped out a small boy in a park one day.

He smiled as he looked down at Sam. He was sleeping in a bed for adults now, too; and he’d not complained once about having to share his room after Dev – Morse, then – had come to stay.

Since it was Saturday, he decided to let him sleep and quietly made his way downstairs.

Mother and Dad were already up. “Good morning, son” the later said over his paper.

“Good morning, Mother, Dad”. He accepted the quick hug and cup of tea Mother bestowed on him. “Anything interesting in the paper?”

His other father hadn’t liked him asking questions – neither of them had; but he had learned soon upon moving in that his new parents didn’t mind.

“Just the usual” Dad answered, putting it away and muttering something about a local politician under his breath that Dev was rather sure he wouldn’t have wanted Mother to hear. He looked down to hide his smile. “Sleep well, Dev?”

That, too; bestowing attention on him for no other reason than they wanted to because they loved him like their own. It had taken a while for him to actually start believing it, he’d even burst into tears when Dad had first told him, but now, he could no longer doubt it.

“Yes, thank you. Joan’s not up yet either – do you need help, Mother?”

She tutted and ran her fingers through his hair. “You don’t have to offer every time, dear. I think I can handle a few eggs.”

He’d been expected to offer, at his old home. No; that wasn’t true; he’d been expected to do things and been scolded when he didn’t.

Seemed like he was in a nostalgic mood today. No; nostalgic didn’t fit; he was experiencing something else. After all, nostalgia meant looking back upon something with fondness, and that was definitely not what happened when he thought back to his time in his father’s house. No, he was… being introspective, that was it; and then he realized.

That was why he had automatically thought that he couldn’t recall a year passing that quickly. Because it had been. Out loud he said, “I came to live with you a year ago.”

“You did?” Dad asked.

“Yes, love” Mother told him, “It was the day we brought him home with us.”

“Ah. That explains it. I always think of August 13, when we signed the adoption papers” Dad said. “Hard to believe it’s been a whole year already.”

“I was thinking the same thing” Dev said quietly. So much had happened – he’d been adopted, been given a nickname and unconditional love, he’d started reading Victor Hugo… alright, maybe that wasn’t the most important thing, but he considered it rather impressive of himself that he’d managed to get through all of _Les Misérables_ in two weeks.

“A good year, too” Dad replied, smiling proudly at him.

He nodded because talking suddenly seemed too difficult. Dad seemed to guess because he patted his shoulder.

* * *

Later that day, when the children were playing in the garden, the conversation turned to Dev’s arrival at their house.

“A whole year” Fred shook his head. “Really, most of the time I forget he hasn’t been with us since he was born.”

“Me, too. He fit right in from the start” Win beamed. She’d decided to bake a cake to celebrate.

“I have to admit, I was a bit worried about puberty, since the age difference between him and the others is quite large” he admitted. “But really, the few outbursts he’s had are nothing compared to what I’ve heard from my colleagues.”

“And Mrs. Turner from down the street told me her niece ran away from home a few times. We got lucky.”

“That we did, pet.” Laughter drifted in through the windows and Fred had to smile. “You should have seen Tobbin’s face that one time when I told him our fourteen-year-old read Blake.”

She chuckled as she mixed the cake. “I can imagine. You know, one of these days Dev’s going to get you to abandon the hat stand rule.”

Fred knew he’d already been close to do so at several occasions. It was one thing to field questions from the kiddies, but their bright-eyed, smart oldest had a knack of finding ways to get him to divulge information. Now and then, Fred had considered the possibility that he might want to become a copper as well, especially since Win told him he’d been reading Criminal Law. But there was time for that, yet. First of all, Dev had to finish school.

“There are worse things” he decided as, once again, laughter rang out.

* * *

Of course this wasn’t simply dealt with after their talk at breakfast – even as he played with Joan and Sam, Dev found his thoughts drifting back to a year ago. He’d been ill, miserable and convinced there was nothing to be done about either of those things.

And ten, instead of slowly succumbing to pneumonia in his father’s house, he’d woken up in what soon became his real home, had already been then, if he was being honest; he’d certainly spent most of the time he was awake there.

“Dev!” Joan called out and a ball flew towards him. He caught it. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing” he said quickly.

“Yes there is. That is the face you make when you think about stuff you don’t like” she said wisely.

She really had gotten to know him too well.

He sighed. “I came here a year ago” he told her.

Her eyes widened. “But that’s a good thing!”

“I know, Joanie. I was thinking of – before.”

“Ah.” Joan, who, with all the experience of her almost eight years on earth, had decided for herself that Dev’s former parents were the worst people on the planet, made a face. Then she hugged him. “You’re with us, now. And Dad said no one could take you away.”

“When did he do that?” Dev asked, frowning.

“I had a nightmare that a bad man came to take you away again” she explained, her eyes shining lightly at the very thought, and his heart went out to her.

“It’s like Dad said” he told her, “You’re stuck with me now.”

She hugged him again.

Sam, who was still a little too small to completely understand what was going on – in fact, it seemed to Dev that he had forgotten he hadn’t always lived with them – demanded they resume playing and they acquiesced.  

* * *

That night – Sam was already asleep – Dev was sitting on the bed, trying to read, but instead he kept thinking of the time when he’d first come to live here, and how much happier he was now.

And so he marked the page and got up.

Mother and Dad were sitting in the living room. “Everything alright, son?”

They had already had their nightly cup of tea together.

He nodded. “Yes. It’s just – I – I have been thinking.”

“You don’t say.” Dad chuckled at his own joke, but Mother hushes him. She seemed to realize that Dev was about to tell them something important.

“I – would you – that is – could I take Thursday as my last name?”

The answer was the same he’d received when he’d asked them whether he could call them Mother and Dad, and it made the day even more important than it already had been.

* * *

It had been bound to happen. Dev knew that; but at the same time, he hadn’t expected it. Maybe because his new life was so different from the old life he’d led in his – in his old home before he’d met Mother and Sam in the park.

Still, he was walking home from school one day when he suddenly happened across Gwen. She was standing in front of a store; he almost didn’t notice her, but then their eyes met accidentally and he stood still.

She hadn’t changed in the two years he’d been gone from her house. She still looked rather grumpy and unfriendly – a small twinge of his conscience reminded him that the thought was not charitable – and she wasn’t happy to see him. “Morse.”

His family – his real family – called him something else now, but he wasn’t going to tell her. He didn’t want to hear his nickname fall from her lips. “Hello, Gwen.”

A rather awkward silence ensued, and he wished he’d simply kept walking. They had no reason to speak to each other. They hadn’t had anything to say to each other when they had lived in the same house, so what should they talk about now?

“How’s Joyce?” he finally tried.

“She’s fine” Gwen replied courtly, and Morse briefly wondered how life would have been if he had got to know his other little sister. He did seem to remember that she had liked him, the few times he’d been allowed near her. But then, most people he had met had seemed friendly compared to Gwen.

“That’s good” he said, rather awkwardly; after all, what else was he supposed to do?

After a pause Gwen asked, “And I assume you’re doing well for herself?”

Apparently he hadn’t been supposed to find a new family through getting ill, but that didn’t really surprise him. “Yes, thank you. I’m at the top of my class.” He had no idea why he even divulged the information. It wasn’t like she was interested. She’d made that clear again and again.

She nodded, and it was rather clear that he’d been right about her disinterest in the information. “And _they_ still treat you like one of their own?”

Yes, he wanted to say, imagine that, they didn’t take me in to have a servant, but didn’t. That would have been uncharitable, and they hadn’t had to look after him after Mum died. They could have let him go into the system, and he knew from Dad how horrible that would have been. Because he didn’t trust himself to replay calmly, he nodded.

“Well, then, you have nothing to complain about.”

He decided this had been going on for long enough. “No I don’t. Goodbye, Gwen.”

He’d only made a few steps, though, when she called out, “Morse, wait!”

When he turned around he saw an expression on her face that he’d never seen there before. For a second, there was something almost like regret, and very nearly like sorrow; but it was gone so quickly he couldn’t be sure.

Finally she said, “You didn’t ask after your father.”

He knew exactly how to answer. “Because I know how he’s doing. He just solved a case yesterday. Goodbye.”

And Dev Thursday turned around and went home.


End file.
